Deon stared at the card in his hand for a second—no, less than a second.

Around him, the room had gone strangely quiet.

People were thinking. Some clutched their cards with trembling hands, staring at the blank surface with equally blank expressions. Others had already begun writing with urgency, as if every second spent hesitating might cost them the miracle itself.

Deon, meanwhile, almost felt insulted.

...This is the question?

Out of everything he had expected from some grand competition between a hundred people, this was what they opened with?

What do you want?

Ridiculous, it was the easiest thing anyone had asked him in months. He uncapped the pen and immediately pressed it to the card.

I wish for a world where I’m the richest man alive and have infinite money.

The words flowed out without even the need to think twice, without regret. By the time others were still frozen on their first line, Deon was already done.

He leaned back, admiring the card in his hand, satisfied. "Yeah, that’ll do."

Then, naturally, curiosity kicked in.

Deon shifted his gaze towards the girl beside him. Hana still had her head lowered, pen moving in short bursts as she wrote carefully across the card.

Her brows were lightly furrowed, as she was taking the question far more seriously than he had. Deon angled his head just enough to peek.

Blank.

Huh?

The pen was moving. He could hear the faint scratching of ink across the paper. Yet the card remained completely untouched.

He glanced toward another contestant nearby. A middle-aged man was scribbling so hard his hand shook with it.

Blank again.

The Game Master stood with both hands behind his back, the featureless white mask turned toward the crowd below.

"Desire," he said pleasantly, "is a private matter."

Several heads snapped toward him at once.

"Only the owner of a wish may see what was written."

Deon clicked his tongue and looked back at his own card, where his words remained clear as day.

Tch. Worth a try.

The Game Master slowly raised one gloved hand. "Now then," he announced loudly once he saw everyone finish.

With a single sweep of his arm, the cards were torn from everyone’s hands at once, as though caught in an invisible vacuum. They shot through the air before dropping neatly into a box that had mysteriously appeared in front of him.

The Game Master lightly dusted his hands before he spoke again. "Now that your wishes have been recorded, let’s go over the ground rules."

He lifted one finger.

"Rule One."

"A contestant’s worth shall be measured through points. A contestant is able to earn points through various means within each Scenario. Rankings shall be updated at the end of each Scenario."

A second finger rose.

"Rule Two."

"Contestants who directly confront one another shall incur severe penalties in points. Please keep the game fair and fun for everyone!"

And finally, the last finger.

"Rule Three."

"At the conclusion of every Scenario—"

"The contestant holding the lowest score shall be executed."

Several voices rose at once, panic quickly replacing outrage as people stumbled back from one another. Others simply stood frozen, faces pale as the meaning of the third rule settled in.

Beside him, Hana had gone quiet, gripping her sleeves tightly.

Deon said nothing, his eyes remained on the Game Master. He tried to look through those dark eyeholes of the man’s mask, trying to find a lie.

But before anyone could say anything more, the man clasped both hands behind his back before giving a small nod.

"Well then, good luck everyone! I’ll see some of you later!"

"...What?"

The word barely left Deon’s mouth as the white floor beneath them split apart before...the ground disappeared completely.

For one impossible second, his body hung weightless.

Then...he dropped.

Wind tore past Deon’s face as he plummeted through open sky, his stomach lurching somewhere far above him.

Below, the city spread out in full view.

District 4, one of the largest districts in the country, always alive no matter the hour.

Now...it looked dead.

Collapsed buildings leaned into one another like broken teeth. Entire streets were blackened with fire, smoke rising from scattered wreckage. Roads had split apart in jagged lines, vehicles overturned and abandoned wherever they had been left.

"...What the hell!?" Deon yelled in confusion.

But his words were ripped away by the wind.

Deon only looked for a second before his eyes moved around. Bodies were falling all around him, scattered across the sky like meteorites.

His eyes tracked them immediately, trying to remember where they landed so he could find them later. But the ground was coming up fast, way too fast.

"Oh, shit—!"

He braced instinctively, expecting to turn into instant mush. But just before impact, he somehow slowed. It was almost like invisible hands caught him in the air, and Deon dropped the last few feet harmlessly.

His shoes struck solid pavement, staggering two steps forward before barely catching himself from falling over.

"...Hah...hahh.." Deon breathed out heavily, bending over with his hands on his knees.

"What the fuck is going on?!"

He slowly straightened, chest still rising unevenly as he forced air back into his lungs. Only then did Deon truly look around.

The ruined street stretched in both directions, lined with shattered storefronts and cracked sidewalks buried beneath glass and debris.

There was no mistaking it. This was District 4.

"...How?" Deon muttered the word without thinking.

Only moments ago, this place should’ve still been standing. He had been on a bench, eating discounted rice balls and milk bread while the city moved on without him.

How was this the aftermath? Was this really the apocalypse? Did it happen while we were in that white room?

Or had we been gone far longer than we realized?

One after another, questions flooded his mind with no real answers to be seen. None of it made sense. Deon stared a moment longer at the dead streets before clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

"...Doesn’t matter."

Whether this was real, fake, the apocalypse, or some nightmare put together by lunatics—none of it changed what he came here to do.

Win.

He forced himself to move, eyes scanning his immediate surroundings properly for the first time. Deon realized that he had landed on what used to be a supermarket.

The front of the building had partially collapsed, leaving the upper floors exposed like broken layers of cake. Conveniently, a section of fallen debris had formed a slanted path downward.

Deon wasted no more time.

He carefully made his way down. Twice he nearly slipped, once on loose glass and another on a hanging wire that nearly caught his ankle.

By the time Deon reached street level, his eyes found the others that were there.

Just outside the supermarket entrance, a small group had already gathered. The man in the gray suit from earlier was there, talking to the group slowly. Beside him was the woman in the red dress, arms crossed and visibly irritated even now.

Around them were four others, all wearing the same lost expressions Deon imagined he probably had himself.

Then his eyes found one more figure, Hana.

She stood slightly apart from the others, relief flashing across her face the moment she noticed him.

"Ah!" she called, lifting a hand. "You’re okay!"

Deon reached her, replying simply. "Yeah, I am. Are you?"

But before she could reply, the conversation from the group cut over her. "What do you mean you don’t know?!"

The woman in the red dress snapped first, heels crunching against the broken glass as she rounded on the man in the black suit. "You were the one telling everyone to stay calm back there!"

"And panicking now helps us how?" the suited man replied evenly, though Deon could see his eyes betrayed his own words.

"None of us know what this place is."

"It’s obvious what it is!" one of the others blurted out. "We’ve been kidnapped by psychos!"

"Kidnappers don’t usually drop people from the sky," another muttered weakly.

The argument threatened to spiral immediately, as they looked for any logical conclusion to the mess. Then the suited man raised his voice once more.

"Enough."

Surprisingly, everyone listened.

"Right now, we got lucky," he gestured toward the ruined building behind them. "A supermarket. We can hopefully find any food, water, supplies, and maybe tools if anything useful is left."

"We don’t know how long we’re here," he continued. "So the smartest move is obvious."

For the first time since arriving, Deon found himself agreeing with someone in a suit.

The others exchanged uneasy glances before, one by one, they began heading toward the broken entrance. The woman in red clicked her tongue but followed anyway.

Soon, only Deon and Hana remained outside.

She looked after the group before exhaling softly. "At least someone’s trying to think clearly..." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Or trying to sound like he is," Deon muttered.

Then something above caught his eye. High in the smoke-stained sky, glowing faintly against the gray, were numbers that had appeared out of nowhere.

72:00:00

The digits hung there impossibly large, suspended over the ruined district like a second sun. Then, without any warning—

71:59:59

The countdown began.

Goosebumps rose along Deon’s skin so suddenly that he stiffened where he stood. He didn’t know why, but every instinct in him screamed that something was wrong.

Beside him, Hana rubbed her arms and gave a small shiver.

"It is kind of cold out here," she said. "Come on, let’s head inside."

Deon kept staring upward for one more second before tearing his gaze away.

"...Yeah."

But even as he began walking, the numbers refused to leave his mind for a simple reason: What happens when it hits zero?

Do we have to survive for that long?

Or...

Was that when all hell broke loose?